minus7

I actually jotted down these titles and their links FIVE DAYS AGO, but I'm just now getting around to finishing it off and posting it. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C!

Way back when, when Mom was still here visiting, she was looking for something to watch and we ended up watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Probably my favorite Indy movie, but just by a nose. 4.5*

Sunday was a bigtime movie watching day because I was tired of my Netflix rentals sitting there and mocking me!

First up was Black Book, which we invited Larry & Jerilyn to watch with us. Click the link and read the description and you might be able to guess why. Anyway... It's a 2.5 hour long movie... IN GERMAN! No kidding. Subtitles all the way. It sucked at first, but the movie was so good that at some point I didn't even realize I was reading them anymore. No kidding. 4*

After that L&J were talking about going down to their house and getting some stuff done while I was loading up Waitress. An hour and a half later, there they still were, sitting on the couch! LOL Another good movie that I wasn't the least bit disappointed in watching, but I'm only gonna give it 3*.

Finally we finished things off with One Last Thing. L&J actually did make it back home before I started this one, but just barely! I'm tellin' ya, I was serious about getting these three movies watched!! Now, if you follow the link and read the description on this one it sounds like a teen comedy in the same vein as The Girl Next Door. It isn't. There were some funny spots, but it was so far from the cliche comedy that I could hardly believe it. It actually turned out to be a pretty decent drama. Not my favorite movie by any stretch, but I'd recommend it. 3*

Since that crazy Sunday run the only thing we've watched is CSI, and I'm happy to report that we finished season 6! As long as we've been cranking through these episodes it's next to impossible to rate differences between the particular seasons. Let's just say we love the show and call it good. K? K. 5*

Of course, 3 more Netflix rentals showed up in the mail today! You can bet I'll do my best to have them all watched by Monday. heh-heh

On deck:
The Nanny Diaries, Stardust, and The Unit: Season 1: Disc 1

Oh, and my DVD Collection list has been updated. (link at upper left of page)

(hi jodi)

What. A. Week.

I worked on Monday, but had off the rest of the week.

Monday, after work, we found out that the kids were staying up in GJ with The Twins. That left us free on New Years Eve! We called and bowed out of the party we had been invited to so we could spend a quiet evening with just the 2 of us.

We called Olive Garden to see what the wait was like, and it was horrendous, so we decided to just go to Chili's for supper instead.

Not long after we sat down, Staci's phone rang. It was our new pastor asking if we could come over and hang out for New Years Eve! He had a party planned and had invited several Western Slope pastor's, but when they found out his wife wasn't in town they all bailed on him. We were so tickled that he wasn't sick of us yet... we just couldn't say no. So after supper we went over there. One other (older) couple from church ended up coming over, and that was it. Needless to say he was super glad that we were there! We started munchin' and playing a card game. The pastor had been skiing earlier in the day and crashed pretty bad once; his wrist was really hurting. Not long into our game it was becoming clear that he was in a lot of pain and it was getting worse. Flashback to Staci's ankle situation on Christmas Eve! So we talked him into going to the ER. He's a great sport. He grabbed the fresh-out-of-the-oven brownies for the ER staff and we were off. It was quite an adventure. The nurses were totally stoked about the brownies, and it turns out he most likely broke the scaphoid bone in his wrist. A splint, some Vicodin, and we were on our way. Back at the house we had fun finishing our card game and ringing in the new year. It was a little after 1am when we got home.

Tuesday morning we went out to breakfast with a huge group of people. I think there were about 14 of us! To be honest... neither Staci nor I can remember a damn thing about the rest of the day!! LOL I have no clue what happened. Scary.

Wednesday morning we had an appointment to drop the truck off with a mechanic in Olathe, so we did that at 7:30 and then I took Staci in to work. Back at home I got on the computer for a bit and hung out with the kids, then went back to town to drive Staci on her morning errands for work. Back home, more computer and more kids, then back to town to drive Staci on her afternoon errands, which were extra long in preparation for this weekends company holiday party and took us clear to closing time.

Thursday, Staci took the car to work and left me stranded at home with the kids. I slept until about 9am, warmly snuggled under our new comforter. I LOVE our new comforter! Anyway, the kids were hellions from that point on. Talk about feeling like a complete failure of a parent... spend an entire day at home with your kids! Ok, maybe just MY KIDS. At any rate, IT SUCKED ASS!

Today I got up and took Staci to work, then came home and spent the rest of the morning catching up on my RSS feeds. At 10:30 Bekah and I went in to drive Staci on her morning errands and then we went to lunch at Pancheros. YUM! Back at home I worked on a PowerPoint presentation for Sabbath School tomorrow morning and did a little laundry until it was time to go pick Staci up from work.

OH! I sent the kids out to play this afternoon and they were out on the frozen over irrigation canal behind the house. I guess the ice broke and Brian fell in! He came in soaking wet up to his chest and freezing. heh-heh I put him in the bathtub for a few minutes to warm up and then he went back out with Bekah again. When they came back in a while later they told me about crossing the canal and going up to the pond on the property behind us. Of course, they were out on the ice! So we had a bit of a talk about safety and what to do if one of them got in a dangerous predicament.

Anyway, more messing around on the computer after I got Staci home, then supper down at Jerilyn's, followed by more computer time while the kids played hide and seek.

OH-OH! On the way home from picking up Staci, she had me stop at a store to show me some fleece lined Crocs. They didn't have the color she wanted (pink), but I ended up getting me some new black Crocs (not the fleece lined ones)! When we got home the first thing I did was go online and find the ones she wanted in the color she liked, so those are on order. ;-)

I made some pretty exciting computer progress tonight! First, I FINALLY got the file that was stuck on my Vista desktop deleted!! I had tried just about everything and had finally resigned myself to its presence. It's sat there, taunting me, for over a week now. So I signed up on a techy forum and was getting ready to post my predicament and see if any genius could help me get that damn thing deleted. First though, I thought I had better browse around to see if my question had already been answered. I found a thread about my problem, but the solutions had already been tried and hadn't worked. While ready I had a thought of something to try. I shared my desktop folder on the home network, got on my laptop and tried to delete it from there. AND IT WORKED! I couldn't believe it. It took a couple of tries to do things just right, but damnit... IT WORKED. I can't even tell you how relieved I am.

The other thing was "discovering" a cool new utility that's going to save my life. Actually, Mom told me about it, if you can believe it. It's called SyncToy, and it totally KICKS ASS! I can't tell you how stoked I am about it.

Anyway, it looks like Staci is finally ready to throw in the towel on her game, so I'm off to bed.

Tomorrow afternoon we're going out to D&J's to celebrate LAM's bday, and then tomorrow night is Staci's company "holiday party."

I won't even hazard a guess when I'll post again! :-D

(hi gwen)

Well, it's a quarter til 5 in the morning... I think I'll go to bed!

Well, we finally woke up at about noon! LOL The first thing we commented on was how amazing it was that we had no phone calls wake us up. And that's when we remembered that the phone was forwarded to my cell and we never turned off the forwarding! HAHA So I checked my messages and sure enough, we missed 2 calls. So we got up and I got the calls taken care of. Another round of laundry has been started, and now we're sitting down to watch a movie.

What a day!

(hi kev)

So, I did indeed get those 3 DVDs watched before getting lost in the work week.

Last night Staci and I were up late playing our respective computer games. "Late" is the wrong word really... "early" would be more accurate. At any rate, I burned out eventually and Staci was still going strong, so I popped in disc 1 season 1 of The Unit. Three hours later... first DVD down and 2 to go! I realize it's only the first 4 episodes of the first season, but I already really like it. 4*

We woke up at noon, returned a couple missed calls, ate some cereal, started a load of laundry and kicked back to watch Stardust. I think it's safe to say that Stardust is the new Princess Bride! 4.5*

Last, and least, The Nanny Diaries. Scarlett Johansson is a hottie and all, but wasn't enough to save this movie. 2.5*

Last night we had a little time to fill before going to bed but not quite enough for a movie. Perfect for a little TV on DVD! Unfortunately I have nothing from Netflix right now and we've finished everything we own. As good a time as any to restart Alias from the beginning! heh-heh

Tonight is kinda the same situation, but with enough time for a movie. I've already played my game a bit and gotten past the spot I was stuck on, so now it's time for something else. Perfect opportunity to get one of those DVDs I bought and never watched out of the way! And that's how I finally ended up watching Wicker Park. It's always sounded like a good movie, so when I saw it in the $5 bin I went ahead and picked it up. Damnit, I wasted $5! 2*

Last night the kids wanted me to help make a snowman, so I bundled up and went outside with them. Well, we had plenty of snow, it just wasn't "sticky." So I came inside to get supper ready. Brian REALLY wanted that snowman and wouldn't give up, but he continued to have no luck. Finally I suggested to him that if he wanted a snowman that bad he needed to take a spray bottle outside and spray it on the snowball, add more snow, spray it, add snow, spray, add, ad infinitum.

So he did!

Last night when I went out to call the dog in I got a good look at his little snowman and was blown away! Check it out!

(hi cheryl [cuz])

It was a really light DVD watching week, but only because we sent all 3 Netflix back on Monday and had to wait for three new discs. Usually they go out only one or two at a time so we have a pretty even flow, but not this time.

Funny, it was all TVD this week! I watched a couple more episodes of Alias: Season 1, one episode of Gilmore Girls: Season 7, and four episodes of The Unit: Season 1.

On deck:
War, Dear Frankie, I Am Legand, Alias: Season 5, Gilmore Girls: Season 7, Mind of Mencia: Season 3.

We took Staci's truck into the shop last Wednesday because it was blowing cold air on the driver's side and hot on the passenger side. It turns out the bottom half of the heater coil was clogged up, and that was the half that provided heat for the driver's side. The part had to be ordered from Denver, and the weather was spotty all last week.

Well, they got the part on Monday and the truck back in working order by noon on Tuesday. Jerilyn and I went and picked it up after I got home from work on Tuesday.

$750!

On the bright side, it's not 4 digits, like Steve's furnace! Still... ouch!

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I think it was Tuesday that I finally tried installing the full software for my bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Of course... it didn't go so well. After installing a Dell connection wizard came up, and then a "New Hardware Detected" thing. Well, it couldn't find drivers for the bluetooth mini-receiver! So I tried pointing it to some places, but to no avail. So I just moved on without i since things were working ok. I had to manually close the connection wizard though.

Things were fine until I rebooted. The same connection wizard came up, accompanied by the same hardware detected thing. Still no drivers, so canceled that and manually closed the wizard again. I got on a tech support chat with Dell and they couldn't fix it either, so I decided to just uninstall the bluetooth software.

Oops, now the mouse and keyboard wouldn't work at all!

Wednesday I brought home a USB keyboard and mouse so I could do something, even if it was wrong (which it has been most of the time recently). I did a system restore back to a point when it worked, rebooted, still not keyboard or mouse. So I called Dell tech support on the phone and got an Indian that I could barely understand! Oi-vey! Luckily he wasn't in the XPS department and had to transfer me - heh-heh.

The next guy had a much softer accent and was really good. We set up a Dell Connect session and he basically worked on my computer while I watched. FOR TWO HOURS!

Did I mention that Wednesday is Adventurer night, and the last time I got tied up in a Dell support call was also on a Wednesday?!

In the end we never did figure it out. We ended up telling the hardware detection thing to not ask about that device anymore and then went into the system and manually told it not to run the Dell bluetooth connection wizard on startup! So we're right were I was before I uninstalled it, but with the messages we can't fix turned off! Ai-yi-yi!

I did make it to Adventurers, but I had to run out the front door and through 6 inches of snow down to Jerilyn's house to catch the truck because Staci was leaving my ass behind! :-D

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Did I mention that after getting the truck back from the mechanic the BRAND NEW STEREO quit working?!

Yes, this is the luck I am having. Stay far away from me, it may be contagious.

So, we had a nurse at Adventurers to teach the kids some first aid stuff which left me with time to go out to the truck in the freezing cold night and see if I could figure out what was wrong with the stereo. Which I did... because I RULE. HA!

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Some of you have seen my kick-ass DVD storage cabinet, made and installed by a professional back when I actually had some good luck. LOL! I long ago outgrew that beautiful cabinet and bought a multimedia storage rack to catch the overflow. Well, I haven't really said much about it, but some time ago I outgrew that too! Last week I finally caved in and ordered another identical rack, the plan being to somehow stack it on top of the existing one.

It came today, and with the help of my amazingly awesome and gorgeous wife I now have a super storage rack. Floor-to-ceiling baby... yeah! Check it.

I figured it out (because that's how I roll), and I think I have room for about 135 more movies. Hm... maybe I shoulda bought two!

I can't remember the last time we had a Sabbath afternoon at home. Seriously! And yesterday was no different.

We stayed for potluck and then hung around for an hour and a half so we could go over to the nursing home to sing. We finally got home at about 3:30 in the afternoon, but had a school supper to attend at 6:30! Well, there was a little time in there, and I wanted a nap!

Brian was outside playing with his friend (whom he had invited to church and was essentially spending the whole day with us) so at least he was occupied. I told Bekah to grab a My Bible Friends book and come lay down with me. So there I was with Bekah cuddled up on one side and Staci on the other. Thankfully Staci took the initiative to read and halfway through the second story I was OUT! Having my two girls cuddled up with me as I fell asleep was easily the highlight of my day.

Brian's friend was staying the night now, so we took him with us to the school dinner. Hung out there with some friends, ate, listened to a group of ladies from the area sing some old-time songs, barbershop quartet style. They were part of an international organization called Sweet Adelines. It was quite cool. Staci could have fun in something like that!

We watched one movie when we got home and that was it.

Today we have to get Christmas stuff packed away, clean the house, do a bunch of laundry, and hopefully watch a movie or two. We'll see how it goes.

I updated the DVD shelf picture (I didn't like the 1/2 empty look). If you're so inclined you can check it out again. :-)

This is a pretty long video, and I don't expect you to watch it all, but you HAVE to watch the first few minutes and skip to the end to watch maybe the last minute. Amazing. Freakin' kids... me hates them!

This one's for you Thorban!

... your daughter has a temp of 102 and neither parent can afford to stay home with her. :-(

And by "afford" I'm referring to time, not money.

I have so much work to do it isn't even funny. I've been running a solid day or more behind for a while now, and the other guys can't get caught up enough to help me out.

At Staci's office, one of the girls is off for the rest of the week, so if she stays home it would be leaving one person to do the job of three.

Poor Bekah... what kind of message is she getting when she's legitimately sick and neither of us can stay home with her?!

I feel like a huge turd right now.

Not that you care a whole lot, but I thought I'd start posting some things that I find of interest on ye olde internets. Just little snippets here and there that don't take long to post, but at least add something new to the page. So, here are several things I've found over the past several days.

Well, first of all, being a movie guy, the death of Heath Ledger is big news. Everyone is calling it a great tragedy and is all tore up about it. And yeah, it totally sucks. But in my not so humble opinion, anyone that kills themselves with drugs isn't someone that I'm going to waste a lot of time mourning over. That being said, he was a good actor and after The Dark Knight comes out this year we won't be enjoying any more movies with him in them. Sad. There are reports all over the net about all of this, but I like this one, it's more of a tribute than a report.

Have you guys heard about the Amazon Kindle? I first saw it on the cover of Newsweek and the accompanying article was quite good. I think it's pretty neat, and would love to have one. I don't expect, or necessarily want it to replace actual books, but it would still be a handy dandy thing to have if you like reading. Stephen King took it for a test drive and wrote about it for Entertainment Weekly. It's a nice, honest little opinion piece from the point of view of an author and reader.

I got a lot of this first batch of links from surfing the Entertainment Weekly website. I don't go there often though, mainly because there is way too much content to keep up with! Anyway they had a list of the best fan sites on the web and a few of them jumped out at me to share with people that I knew liked some of these shows.

• For the Simpson's lover there is The Simpsons Archive.
• For those of you obsessed with the Dunder Mifflin Paper Co., this site is for you!
• How about The Amazing Race? TARflies has it all.
• And of course there was a Star Trek site on the list! I give you... Memory Alpha.

That's all for this time. Enjoy! Oh, and let me know what you think about any or all of this, not to mention the idea in general. Thanks.

"So while a college degree was de rigueur for the baby boom generation, that's not necessarily the case now. In today's highly technical and service-related market, workers are judged more on their skills than their sheepskins."

Check out the 25 top-paying jobs that don't require a four-year degree.

I'm going through life a generation and a half ahead of my time. If I was going through high school/college right now, I think I'd be thriving. *sigh* Oh well. Hopefully my kids will do better. (and isn't that what we all end up aspiring to in the end?)

skipped SS
went to GJ
Olive Garden
Jim & Cyndi's (CoD4 & Boogie)
Angelica
Grace
Beau's party
Jennifer
insanity
pancakes (a, g, j, r)
shopping
Guitar Hero III

My company won an award and was written about in the local paper. Check it out!